Monday, May 02, 2011

Wii Bowling Day One Revisited

If you haven't been following the Wii Bowling saga - here is the most recent installment. Make sure to read through the comments.

Day One is done. With having only 50 minute periods, we only had time to bowl. Both classes bowled two games. I divided them into 4 teams and they rotated bowlers so everyone would have a chance to bowl. I tried to do some questioning between games with my first class, but there just wasn't time to really delve into it. 50 minutes sure goes fast!  Here are the slides (pdf version) I put together to go over with my two classes tomorrow:
3rd Period Data

5th Period Data

I tried to do some preliminary work with the data to see where it may take us. As I orginally said, my first thought was "is there some formula they use to come up with the skill level?" I played a bit with the first class (3rd period) data and it appears to be linear except for the Team 3 score. Team 3 had 3 strikes in a row (a turkey) and that was the only big thing I could find different. I did not have a chance to see if a similar thing happened with the second class (5th period). Team 4 in 5th period had a turkey in the second game.

I also noticed that once a team's total gets somewhere around a certain point (in the 300s I speculate), the scores may go up differently.Again, I didn't get much of a chance to play with the second class (5th period) data.

So - what question(s) to pursue from here? One of the things that popped out to me as I looked at the data was that there is a certain point where the total pins will exceed the skill level. In my 3rd period class, Team 4 scored 391 between the two games, but their skill level was 387. There are some scores that the skill level goes up by more than the original score and others where they don't.

Dan Meyer mentioned in the last comment of my previous post about "hav(ing) the makings of a much more interesting version of 'The average of Teri's last five tests is 70%. Then she scores a 65%, a 80%, a 100%. What is her new average?'" question. I can certainly see that. But the mathematician in me wonders how the average factors into the skill factor. I guess I can't just let go of that in my head - it is what drew me to the idea in the first place. Problem is, I can't figure out where the skill level comes from and I don't know if it's even somehing that is accessible to my students.

Dan also mentioned in his comment that if students don't rallky around a single questions, it's time to rethink the problem. I'm wondering tonight if it's time to rethink this.

The plan at this point for tomorrow:
Put up the data from their class. I haven't decided if I'm going to also show them the data from the other class. Ask them for their noticings and wonderings again. Hope and pray they come up with something I'm missing...  I am thinking I'll give them one more round of bowling to get some more data.

Any other thoughts?  Thanks so much for everyone's help - I would have never been able to do something like this without everyone's support and comments. I so greatly appreciate it!

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